philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA

FEBRAURY 2014

It could have been deemed a disappointment that only about 20 people showed up.

But a worship service in the sanctuary, provided free by Bright Side Baptist Church Saturday night, to pray for the victims of the Amish school shootings in Bart Township was anything but.

Instead, it was a 2 1/2-hour rousing celebration of prayer and song that included the goose-bump-raising voice of a man who is referred to as “the Luther Vandross of Gospel.”

“I don’t need the auditorium full tonight, it is full of God,” belted out the Rev. Apostle Elbert Mondaine, senior pastor of congregations in Portland, Ore., and St. Louis, Mo.

Hearing about the killings of five Amish girls and wounds to five others at their Nickel Mines school house, Mondaine said he felt the need to start a national church movement to stop school violence.

“I said, “Where does it stop?’ ” said the pastor, who recalled 1998 in his home state when a 15-year-old boy, Kip Kinkel, shot 20 high school students and killed his parents.

“I said to God, ‘Why is this happening?’ “

About two weeks ago, he called upon the 700 members of his churches, Celebration Tabernacle in Portland, where he lives, and Grace Center in St. Louis, as well as members of other churches across the country to join in the Saturday night “The 1,000 Angels Gathering” at Bright Side.

Mondaine was accompanied by seven clergy and musicians as well as 8-year-old Nahshon Jones, who performed a song that Mondaine wrote called “Father God.”

“Father God, take my hand, teach me what it is to live again,” the little boy sang in a sweet soprano in his dedication to the Amish girls and their families.

Mondaine said churches across the country need to unite and “to stand and recognize our responsibility to once again take the education of our children under our wings and teach the principles of forgiveness, inclusion and social responsibility.”